A Florida sheriff got right to the nub of the anti-gun narrative and blasted the media for trying to use the tragic deaths of three teens to fuel its partisan political agenda in some must-see video.
It seemed as if Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods had had just about enough of the media on Friday when he went before the cameras to give an update on a horrendous story of teen crime that ended in the murders of two teenage girls and one boy at the end of March.
The sheriff noted that two minors — one who is only 12 years old — were arrested for the murders. One is still being sought. It appears that the suspects and victims were all part of a robbery ring.
Woods blasted the lenient way that society treats juvenile delinquents.
“The fact is, society fails them. We do not hold our juveniles accountable. We minimize their actions,” Woods said during his news conference.
“Our school districts … across this state and across this nation need to quit minimizing the actions of their students. Hold them accountable. That’s where the failure is,” he said.
The sheriff also had pointed words for those who want to turn every gun crime into a political campaign to ban guns.
“There are individuals out there viewing … who want to blame the one thing that has no ability or the capacity to commit the crime itself, and that’s the gun,” Woods said.
It wasn’t the gun. “These individuals committed the crime,” he insisted.
A reporter asked how the suspects got the weapons. Woods answered, “Car burglaries,” and then proceeded to demolish the narrative that tighter gun control laws keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.
“All the gun laws we got in place didn’t prevent it, did it? Neither will any new ones.” He pointed out that “the bad guy’s going to get a gun no matter what law you have put in place.”
Woods also lost his patience when a reporter asked if the victims were an “active part of crime.”
“Folks, don’t ask dumba** questions,” he said to the room of reporters. “Really? Do I have to spell it out to you? What do you think they were doing?”
“Gangs don’t go to church on Sunday and then preach the gospel for the next six days. They’re gangs because they commit crimes. How simple is this idea? Where are we losing it?”
Woods is exactly right.
Not only are we all too often overly soft on juvenile criminals, but guns are not to blame for crime. Guns are merely tools. It is people misusing these tools that causes the crime.
It is refreshing to hear someone say it directly to the media for a change.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.